


Letting go is never easy

by Nilysil



Series: The Hunter and the Prime(s) [AU] [5]
Category: Warframe
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Body Horror, Decapitation, Intimate partners, M/M, Mawframe, Mental Breakdown, Non-canon biology, Psychological Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 00:51:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13647972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilysil/pseuds/Nilysil
Summary: Making salvage runs is never a fun prospect, risking against deadly infestation strains more potent than before. It was one of many, a run for machinery supplies; it was supposed to be routine in a thousand others.They were supposed to make it out together





	Letting go is never easy

**Author's Note:**

> -+- Kudos, comments and sharing are encouraged! -+-

Enigmatic engines pulse as they negate forward thrusts, hanging suspended among the thralls of corrupted arboriforms as they hold the derelicts of a hundred ships in the drifting graveyard. Ships once crowns of Orokin pride sat sullen as the ship’s exterior camera flicker across the tri-screen above the small cobbled together ship’s controls. The prime surveys the screens as Stalker monitors the instruments; gyroscope, signal displays, the lights of a hundred settings perceived in due diligence. “What’s the reading on that one, two clicks to the left, below the larger wreck,” the prime speaks, motioning the camera to zoom in on the ship in question.

Stalker easily homes in on the ship’s signal, barraging it with a dozen sensors to read its various data manifests. Fuel load, directional drift and heading, the status of the arboriform nerve system that transfers all the data instantly to the fully mechanical smaller ship. Above head level the target ship’s information is displayed; rambling lines of text that shifts in every half second – an indicator that it’s still up and running. It’s life signals read very low, a meager fifteen or so throughout the relatively smaller ship to the behemoths shadowing them from the gaze of the sun.

“Looks like it hasn’t been tampered by the other vessels yet,” Stalker muses, flipping through the touch screen displays above him. The excalibur prime follows his partner’s fingers as they dash over the readings, tracing out and highlighting different outlining specs. “Can you toss out a signal beacon at the center of the cluster? Will need to drop the void cloak to allow us to board. Don’t need the entire array alerted to our position.”

“On it,” the prime responds as he leans back, standing to his full height as he crosses the small room to the launch system. He scoots himself into the ragged chair, holding his head back to avoid striking his gilded crest on the overhead beam. With a recoverable drone beacon set, he aims it towards the center of the amassing ship graveyard – hundreds of ships clustered by warping corrupted arboriforms cast in light traces and growing tendrils. With a shutter their ship deploys the small device, alight with a recovery beacon pulsating yellow and red. They can retrieve it later, after they get some more supplies on board.

With it launched, the prime moves himself out of the seat, returning to Stalker’s side as the engine’s thrusts hum through the machinery. It jolts as it begins to move again, the prime retaining his balance as Stalker is sat in the pilot seat. He surveys over the vast instruments, hands tapping to adjust the trajectory to the relatively large vessel, easing them out of the maze of branching brown arboriforms as the void mask drops from the ship – the deployment machinery crying in the ceiling above them. It goes ignored – aware of the creaking sounds but they don’t mind, as long as it’s stable and operational is all that matters.

They’re both silent as Stalker creeps their vessel close, watching the instruments and the proximity display that covers the left-most screen. It reads the distance to the nearest airlock coupling segment, outlining the path the ship will have to take to line up its own to the other ship. It’s a process of directional control and exact propulsions to get the couplings mere millimeters apart before they engage. The ship slowly bumbles its way into position, Stalker’s sights engaged with the quite simple diagram that shows the two junctions closing in on each other. And slowly, but surely, the ship’s engines go quiet, the couplings joining the other ship’s as the protective fold warps over their mended vessel.

Stalker initiates the shutdown process, flipping through the various instruments to decouple the fuel lines, choking out the engines as other nonvital systems are unceremoniously disconnected. It’s not the procedure he was taught so many years ago, skipping safety check after safety check – but he’s worked on it for so long he knows the in and out intimately. Behind him the prime starts up a collapsible cart, humming to life in the cramped space as he gets their things ready for the salvage run. He collects their guns, letting them sit in the ribbed bin as Stalker finalizes the ship’s shutdown, disengaging its safety lock as he steps out from the pilot seat.

The prime hands him his melee of choice – a blade singing as he checks the curved metal for fissures in the structure. In his hands the scythe gleams, light bouncing off the dark blade as the excalibur prime makes his own check on his sword. There may be only a few infested onboard, but neither of them want to board without being certain of their last defenses.

It’d take only a deep scratch to get them infested with the newest strains.

As they both make their individual checks on their rifles, it hangs in the back of their mind – concerning they aren’t immune to the infestation anymore. It’s dangerous to even considering boarding a derelict ship at this point, just as well as actually boarding it. But they need supplies, and fuel. It’s the least hostile of the vast wandering graveyard in the system’s dead space, but even then; there’s always the risk. That one of them might not make it back home.

Stalker pushes that worry out the back of his mind as they set their weapons in the front holsters of the ribbed cart. The prime moves it out of the way of the ship’s airlock as Stalker inputs the numeral code, both giving a nod before he taps the unlock panel; summoning the coupled airlock to open.

They’re calm as they wander through the terminal bay, picking through the remains the last living occupants. At a kiosk the excalibur prime pulls a small device from the rear holster pocket of the open bin, tapping at the transparent screen to download the ship’s layout. A cable connects the two platforms, the prime’s attention transfixed as Stalker stands on lookout, standing at the prime’s side. “Any idea where the fuel load command center would be?” he looks down over the prime’s tapping fingers for just a moment, turning back to survey the derelict’s still scenery.

“I might; on a ship like this it might be in the terminal control center,” the excalibur mumbles, tapping to get the ship’s full schematics. “If we get there, we can pump spare fuel into your ship’s reserves with the coupling ports.”

“So, the fuel lines are a part of the air lock system?”

“Yeah, looks like it,” the prime sighs, standing and retrieving the line before tucking it away. “We can get that running first; could take a few hours to fill the reservoirs.” He tucks the device into the bin’s holster as he exchanges it for his rifle, pulling the ribbed cart with his other as they begin to walk. “It should be this way.”

Stalker follows his partner at the side of the ribbed bin as it rolls over cracked tile and disheveled floors as they approach the control room. They leave the cart at the base of the small stairs that overlook the terminal area, the prime scouring through the dust covered screens for the airlock where their ship is attached. Stalker continues to play guard as the prime works through the complicated system, tinkering with the small device he used earlier to break into the arboriform based circuitry. As he waits, he looks through the security station, on the look out of any infested that may be wandering nearby.

When the pump is finally up and running, they return to their cart; and begin to salvage for spare parts. Maintenance stations are picked clean of universal tools and machinery, items for repairing and modifying a ship or biological neurologic systems, two parts of most every Orokin era vessel. As time passes the cart’s ribbed sides bulge with overflow – strong fabric keeping the items retained as the pile begins to grow. 

They venture through the outbound terminal, collecting items for tethering a ship to another for transport, thick metal lines and fuse junctions. Stalker wants to work on more ships, modify theirs to have a better void mask, to have a better armament they can salvage from the hulls of other derelicts. The residential barely has anything they find need of – maybe an item or two that catch their sights, taking a break among soft pillows beneath the display of a faux void playback.

Beneath an abandoned blanket, the prime pulls Stalker close, maw turned into a sneer as the darker warframe body contorts beneath a curling grip. Over their intimate link a smiling kiss is exchanged, a face made of ridges and one made of plate nuzzling as they force themselves to sit once again. A conversation bounces between them, their cart left abandoned on the other end of the hall from the open door. The prime’s hand strokes Stalker’s head as he moves to stand, Stalker motioning his head in a faintly annoyed manner – an eye roll by any other means as the prime guides him to stand again. An attempt is made to serenade, the blanket rolling from the prime’s shoulders as they engage in a slow dance to the prime’s off-set rhythm. Stalker, still mildly annoyed, moves along with him, guiding his partner into a sway as he reminds him to continue later.

The prime reluctantly concedes, as they collect the items from the room and toss them into the ribbed cart on the other side of the hall. When the bin is nearly full of salvaged items, they start heading back to the inbound terminal, taking sweeps through previous rooms to make sure they aren’t missing anything prior. Stalker and the prime alternate out of standing guard as they move back through the derelict halls – where there’s barely a visible trace of the corrupted arboriform strains to signal decay. Although, it also lingers a deception; that the white trees may already be seared brown further in the ship, hidden beyond the walls.

On the approach to the terminal, as they’re caught in small conversation, the prime excuses himself to climb to the control room to check on the fuel transfer to their meager ship. There, as he looks out into the inbound terminal lobby, he spots something. He’s quiet as he returns to where Stalker is waiting for him, picking up his silenced rifle.

“Got infested in the terminal, just one. Think I might be able to pick it off from the entrance before it knows we’re here.” Stalker gives him a silent nod, watching as the prime scouts ahead, leaving him again to watch the bin down the hall.

The excalibur is quiet as he approaches the inbound terminal hub, careful to keep his movements deliberate, uncertain if other infested are nearby – not wanting to cause a sudden hoard while they’re separated from each other.

It’s too dangerous to go it alone.

But they need the supplies, taking the cart this far would alert the broodmother wandering the lobby.

At the entry way he crouches down, watching for the movements of the lumbering maternal infested mass as well as the writhing maggots that follow in her wake. Either of them dangerous in their own regard – but especially the broodmother, he reminds himself as he finds her through his sight, is the worst to come across. If he doesn’t take her down quickly, as he aims for the shriveled mass mutated inwards of the fleshy conglomerate, she can alert a hoard that will take both him and his partner out.

With a short burst the bullets tear through the frilled flesh that rises over the broodmother’s brain, shredding it quickly with the muted munitions before it has a chance to recoil. The body falls short of the maggots – they’re in his sights next, their bodies exploding into pops of gore as he waits – dreading the rumbling crawl for vicious infested.

But there is none.

A sigh slips through his maw as he lowers the rifle, stepping back to look down the debris-littered hallway to his patient partner. He waves them clear, relaying it through their mental link as he starts back – Stalker pushing the cart towards him and they meet halfway. Side by side they move through the empty terminal, walking around the silent corpses as they keep their senses sharp.

Together, they offload the items into their ship, carefully stacking them into the storage hull in the back. Words are exchanged between them, some verbal and others through an intertwined intimate connection. They feel each other’s hands as though they were their own, palming over hips and wrapping over shoulders, head against head as they make plans for later. A kiss presses against Stalker’s rippled face, a grin as they tease a possible fling. But it’s just a tease; they still need supplies.

They pull themselves apart as it’s the prime’s turn to push the ribbed cart, arms crossed over the hollow rims as they wander back to where they left off – there was still a good couple things they could find use for in the residential sector. Something to make their place feel like a home. From behind the cart, the prime watches Stalker’s back, watching as the built hunter fingers through small trinket souvenirs they passed by before – it was a small shop, littered with various sort of knick-knacks the prime couldn’t care for. But, he never minds watching Stalker light up for the small model ships they find every so often. He knows it reminds him of his life before the fall of the Orokin, what left them to live a life of scavengers in an uncaring system.

Beneath his feet, he feels the arboriforms rumble, groaning and creaking.

His maw twists to a frown, then a grimace.

Infested.

Stalker hasn’t noticed, enthralled with the small model ships he hasn’t collected yet.

The prime rights himself as he tries to feel out the arboriform’s signal, palming through the front pocket of the ribbed cart for his transparent device. Beneath his arm he scrolls it to display life signals -theirs excluded as he expands the radius. In relief he only sees there’s a few blips, barely moving – but he’ll keep an eye on them, sliding the device back into the holster as Stalker approaches with the haul of model ships he delicately sets down. To be extra certain, he wraps them in one of the blankets they procured.

“The arboriforms are writhing,” the prime sighs, “probably going to have a fight on our hands soon.” Through their connection, the prime can feel Stalker’s frown; a crossed look betrayed by an emotionless external face.

“Any idea how many?” He rearranges some of the items they salvaged, setting them straight.

“Only a couple showed up in range of the scanner,” the prime resettles himself, hoisting the cart off a fractured piece of tile that caught a caster wheel. “Who knows how many there could be in a minute or two – should we head back to the ship?” They begin to walk.

Stalker’s quiet, thinking. “The life signs where in the range of fifteen, right? Shouldn’t be too difficult to take care of them in one of the larger rooms,” he suggests, pulling the rifle out of the rumbling bin’s holster pouch.

“It said there was fifteen; but that scanner has always been fuzzy on the details.”

Stalker relays a thought to his partner, falling back to his side. “Yeah. But if we can find the right parts I can fix that up. If we can get this place cleared out it won’t be an issue finding the right things for our ship.”

“I know,” the prime sighs, dejected. There’s so many things they need to repair on the old thing, a remnant of the old war and they’ve been fixing it ever since the empire fell. He can’t recount how many times they fixed the thousand various parts of the fucking thing; but it’s Stalker’s pride to keep the thing running. They’re lucky that the air lock hasn’t seized up yet.

Internally Stalker flips through the vessel’s specs, searching for a certain part in the deep inner workings – tied up in the nervous arboriforms that crawl through the walls and rumble twisting groans. He stares downward as they walk, half paying attention to where he’s going as he motions directions, “It’d be somewhere down that way, the sensory array. But we need to take care of the infested first – I don’t want us to get ambushed with me being stuck under the delicate machinery.”

“Mhm,” the prime concedes, pushing the cart towards the open lobby of the starboard residential quarters. It’s one stop on the way back to the inbound terminal, the two separated by elegant halls bulging with hidden twisted arboriforms. Deep green twigs extend out from cracks in the walls, reaching out for the air that begins to grow musk – the prime tasting shed arboriform fibers that float through the gaps from corrupted plant made nerves. “We better hurry, it’s corrupted.”

Behind them is a lurch, a deep thumping that echoes as they turn.

Stalker dispatches the single infested in a short series of shots, tearing a gap in the place of it’s skull. “Go,” he hisses, moving himself between the prime and a growing rumble from where they came from. “I got your back, just get the cart to the terminal.” He walks back as he fires into the head of another infested; quick and precise. As the prime pushes the cart Stalker follows him, shooting volleys into the growing numbers that screech and groan.

The sound of spinning casters on tile echoes with the wail of infested walkers, clawing and lashing out as they throw themselves into Stalker’s covering fire. Looking back ahead of them, dread sinks into his gut, ejecting the spent cartridge and hastily inserting another as he runs. Internally he curses – his inability to hold energy, the prime’s lack of a significant energy reserve leaves them helpless in such a small space. He fires another volley into the growing hoard, making some trip over accumulating corpses.

Beside him the prime lurches, and grunts.

The cart got stuck on a twisted arboriform sticking out of the tile, stopping them in their tracks. They’d leave it, but their munition is stick in the front compartment – parts jingling as the excalibur tears out his own rifle. “I think we can hold them off,” he communicates over their intimate link, voices already overshadowed by the snarling of the infested.

“We don’t have much left- cover me as I reload,” Stalker snaps back, throwing out the spent cartridge as he tries to fish for another magazine.

He finds none.

“Shit,” he verbalizes, fingers curling around the excalibur’s forearm. “We got to go!”

“The cart-“

“We can get it later! They’re after us,” he heaves the excalibur forward, quickly depositing his rifle into the cart before he follows his partner. “We’ll have to go melee!” He resounds, pulling the scythe from his back as he looks behind with a short body gaunt. He can see large infested following the small hoard and grimaces; ancients.

At the end of the hall he heaves himself back around, stopping with his foot beside the prime – whom has already drawn his sword, skin bursting with radiating energy. “I can manage one or two slashes, three at best,” he sighs, staring down the tumbling infested. “Be careful,” he glances over to Stalker for a moment, their intimate connection split.

They need their concentration to stay alert; this isn’t a sparring match.

Stalker nods, staring down the screaming horde.

A brilliant slash of blue cuts into the hoard, mangling flesh and bones through the smaller infested at the front. A second cuts them deeper, halting some to writhe in trembling pain as intact masses continue to barrel down on them. A faint third cuts deeper, severing one into two.

Stalker catches a runner with the hilt of his blade, kicking it away before it explodes into a gory mash. The festering gore splashes onto the others behind it, screaming as claws tempt to rend into his deep red skin. It’s squandered, head severed by the scythe’s cruel blade as he moves out of the way of another trying to catch him in the side. A step back, a kick, and the blade cuts deep into red, spilling infested blood over the floor and onto Stalker’s legs.

As long as they don’t penetrate skin, he’ll be fine.

Behind him an infested screams, jamming the end of the scythe into its ribs and shoving it backwards to sever its leg at the joint. It screeches, voice caught as the jagged end punctures a mutated lung. He cuts into them deeper, using the length of his scythe to keep them at bay, a backwards swipe knocking them off their feet as he can drive the cruel blade into those of top priority; those with gnashing jagged teeth, twitching claws that strive to sink into his sink in blinding senseless rage. At his ankle his skin feels nips, and he stomps the nibbling maggot off, spreading the jagged teeth around in a mash as his foot skids, catching himself and jamming the butt of the blade into an overbearing ancient that tries to reach for him.

There’s a sudden scream.

It’s his partner.

He remains calm as he lurches forward, throwing his fist into the pulsating ancient’s throat as he twists his scythe behind him. In a clenched fist he strikes downwards, jamming the sharp blade deep into the slimy green flesh behind the ancient’s altered skull. It screams as he moves backwards, yanking the ancient’s head down towards the ground. Stalker glances over to the direction of the scream, shouting his partner’s name as the ancient tries to reach for his legs – he kicks them off, crooking the skull to sever its spinal column with a sickening snap. It’s not dead yet, and he severs its shriveled head.

He calls out again, the prime jamming his sword into the throat of ancient on top of him. Claws are boring into his side, scratching blood from dark flesh at his side. As Stalker strikes down a crawler he can see that his partner’s blade is jagged, broken in two and leaving him just a short blade to stab the ancient’s oversized throat. Again, and again, and again.

Blood fringes the excalibur’s mouth, forcing back screams as he looks over to where Stalker is – not to far away as he silences another bumbling infested. Tentacles scratch in the air above his head, shoving it as he jams the jagged metal into the ancient’s skull. It falls limp on top of him; not dead, the claws in his side digs.

Stalker kicks the offending hand, dragging it away as he jams his scythe into the ancient’s spine to yank it off. It gurgles as it’s pulled along the floor, writhing before he severs its head in a single wide swipe that strikes into tile. There’s still infested around; he’ll hand them soon.

He catches the prime’s reaching arm, wrapping his own as he crouches. He restrains his concern, made easier by their unlinked connection – his partner on the other hand is trembling, bleeding onto the floor as traces bubble up his throat.

“Shit,” he grimaces, coughing blood. “Don’t – don’t worry about me, just kill the rest of them.”

Stalker doesn’t reply, letting the prime’s arm slip from his shoulder.

The excalibur winces as he sets himself up on his arms, as Stalker walks off to kill the remaining scattered infected. His hands are trembling, reaching for the festering wound in his hip and side. Blunt fingers dig into his skin, feeling for rough spots as warmth covers his hand, pulling and digging as his flesh begins to stiffen.

A small, aching sigh slips, maw twisting anguished.

He’s infested.

He looks over to where Stalker is beheading the last infested, becoming covered in fluid spitting from corroded jugular veins. The prime tries to think, tries to concentrate.

How is he going to say he’s as good as dead?

It breaks any restraint that still lingers; a crushing in his chest that makes his nerves crumple and lash out angrily against the tile. But also muted, not wanting to alert his partner of the pain coiling in his chest. He was careless, got caught up in a fight when they were unprepared. He knew that fucking sword was wearing badly, he wanted to fix it when they got back to their residence. In a couple hours from now.

Pain surges in his wound, aching rich red.

When he looks up Stalker is there, dropping his scythe beside them, kneeling, arms holding at angrily trembling arms. Between them a neurological connection is made, the prime lashing out suddenly as he coughs blood.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers Stalker’s chosen name, burying his face into the hunter’s chest as he shoves himself closer into his partner’s muted embrace.

Stalker pulls him close, sinking down to hold the trembling prime. Blood spatters his chest as his partner coughs, pulling himself away to inspect the wound the other’s side. Dark fingers meet dark flesh, feeling the squishing exposed muscle. He can feel the forming lumps in tissue, the reformatting of flesh that bulges against his fingers.

His hands remain on Stalker’s sides as he looks over his wound before fetching a slim knife kept at his side. The prime can feel it bite into his flesh, grimacing as tissue is cut out of his wound. But it’s not enough – he knows by now – it’s already deep inside his gut, coiling and writhing. “I’ve already become infested, it’s useless,” the prime murmurs, hissing as the pain surges inside his gut.

“I’m not going to let you die,” Stalker growls; frantic and in vain as he tries to cut out the mutating flesh in his partner’s side. A bright hand smeared with blood covers his own, pulling it up and away level with a twisted frown.

“It’s too late to save me,” the prime chokes on his blood. Hand guides hand against a breathing face, the blade lying flat and smearing fresh blood to drip down a scratched gilded plate. “Please,” he follows with an anguished whine, “You can get out of here before it takes me.”

Stalker pulls the prime’s head close, a sensational head press as pain surges through the other’s body. “I don’t want to lose you,” he whispers, holding him close.

A chuckle reverbs through the prime, crawling up through the painful twisting in his gut as his flesh begins to corrode from the inside. “You’re so fussy,” he tries to grin; but the pain halts him hissing as pain strikes his hip. “I can’t leave you alone without you breaking shit; you and that hunk of junk.”

Through their connection, a sad smile splits on Stalker’s end – only sensory, none physical less his façade would shatter. “That hunk of junk has gotten us a lot of places, you asshole,” he snides, “I’m not gonna leave you alone until you fix that fucking array you screwed up.”

“The one with the-“ his joking halts as spikes dig into his underbelly, crawling up through his other hip, “with the fucking wires hanging out all over the place? Yea, fuck that electrical hazard.” He tries to chuckle – breath caught halfway as another surge strikes his nerves.

Silence; a painful, awkward silence that is broken up by partial chokes.

Holding each other close, through the blinding pain.

Their hands tighten hold, gripping at the plates along their spine. Not wanting to let go, just wanting to linger in an embrace. It coils through their guts, a pain felt by both as though a singular body – Stalker can feel the cancerous infestation taking hold of the prime’s legs, severing nerves till they finally run numb. Beneath him the prime’s legs fall still, flopping as he resorts the lightening body within his arms.

He doesn’t want to let go.

The prime grimaces, “kill me.”

A phantom of teeth gnash, “I can’t. I won’t,” Stalker pulls the prime’s body close.

“I don’t want to come back to hurt you. I don’t want to give you anymore grief,” he whispers, arms sinking around Stalker’s waist as nerves in his stomach begin to go numb.

A sound starts as Stalker tries to speak, cutting himself off before he can release a cry.

“It hurts,” the prime grimaces, fingers pressing hard as another surge jolts his failing systems, “it’s already taken my legs – I can’t get up,” his voice begins to crack; straining himself to keep composed. “I can’t fucking move!” And it cracks as he yells, straining to pull himself upwards as his nerves shut down around his waist, beginning to slip. “I can’t fucking move my legs!”

Stalker can feel his façade cracking, trembling as all he can do is hold his partner close; the only person he’s known since the collapse; his best friend, his soul mate. A flurry of memories catch in his throat as the prime cries out in pain.

“It’s too late to save me, please, for the both of us.”

“I – I can’t,” Stalker chokes, feeling senseless sobs catch in his throat. Tears that won’t ever express from his featureless face. There’s a painful balling in his chest, squeezing around his heart.

“Yes you can,” the prime heaves, choking on blood as the flesh in his chest starts to mutate, “I know you; your ruthless, cunning, you don’t take pity on others. You fucking do what needs to be done. I’m just another body, just like the rest.” He struggles to hold himself stable, falling further into letting Stalker handle his body.

Stalker is trembling, barely able to hold onto his partner’s lightening body – barely close to a corpse. His emotion tears at their emotional link, struggling to restrain himself. “I can’t, because I love you too much. I told myself I could do it but …”

“I love you too, but fuckin, I love you more than letting you die by my own hands! I don’t want to kill you too! If you can’t silence me now, how would you when I become a fucking infested thrall?” He bites through the pain, seizing as it grips in his chest. “Just fucking do – it just fucking do it!”

Stalker’s grip tightens, hoisting the prime close as he moves to the side with him in tow. Inside an emotional storm swirls, aching and tearing as he feels the pain residing inside his dying partner. He can feel the prime rest his head against his chest, coughing and wheezing, trying to stay conscious through the near blinding pain as the internal infestation begins to take his meager energy refinement system. In one hand, Stalker takes the small knife, it’s blade pinpoint sharp.

He's hesitating.

“Can’t I at least kiss you goodbye?” he shutters, pressing his face against the prime’s craned crest. An ache coils in his chest, right over where the prime’s head lies as his body begins to shutter, arms straining to hold on tight as the grip begin to fail.

“Of course, fussy,” the prime tries to grin, reaching out their nervous link he’s drawn numb. A phantom hand cradles Stalker’s face as their sensory mouths kiss, his hands physical barely able to hold onto the dark skin as the begin to go numb. It lingers, even as his hands begin to drift down, failing against the pull of artificial gravity. “Thank you,” he whispers, giving Stalker one last purr of his name – in a way that always drove Stalker to melt. “Don’t worry about me, I won’t feel a thing. I love you,” and he says the name again, voice drawn into sorrow.

Their empathic link severs one last time – leaving a gaping hole in Stalker’s gut.

“I love you too, asshole,” Stalker cries, pressing the blade against his partner’s throat.

It’s the only way to kill them, to kill a warframe.

Stalker tries to make it quick as he watches the prime’s mouth snarl as the blade bites into his throat, wedging through the gap in the protective gilded plates at the front of his neck. He can’t force himself to look away, his hand trembling as he has to push himself to focus on the task at hand. To sever his partner’s throat, to sever organic nerves and wires that spills over his hands in a sickening red. Blood pools over his lap, coating his hands as he forces the blade through a tough esophagus. One bloody hand cups the back of the prime’s head as he cuts, his emotional coil straining as he watches the expression on his dying partner’s face contort into blinding pain, snarling teeth splitting as the knife cuts through gore – a hand tries to hold his arm. The blade jams against the encasement of the prime’s spine, body trembling as he watches the maw open in pure anguish – a scream made silent as the blade snaps into the gilding with its harsh serrated edge.

Bloody hands cradle the prime’s head as the knife bites against the thick nerve that makes the spinal column, near slipping as he has to drag the blade over twice to sever the flesh clinging to the gilded spine.

And the prime’s features suddenly go lax, maw going slack as his bloody hands scramble to cut head loose from a shuttering body. He grips the gilded head tight against his chest, shoving the body away as his fingers force a hanging jaw closed. It’s heavy against his heaving chest, emotions cracking as he stares at the headless body of his former partner.

Inside, his thoughts blank.

All he can feel is the prime’s blood on his hands, slickening the once pristine face with sticking red as he pushes himself backwards, scooting away from the body as the infestation tears through white and grey skin.

Anguished, he screams.

His body coils up around the head nestling against his chest, trying to tear open a lacking jaw in his featureless ripple of a face. It just makes him more frustrated, one hand curling around the head with fingers pressing against a scratched up gilded crescent. Rising to one knee, he strikes the corpse of the infested that tore into the excalibur’s sides, the rends of white and grey skin still within its claws. His voice hitches, resonates, cracks as he yells, screams, shouts; cursing relentlessly in tumbling emotions. He holds the disembodied head firmly against his chest. He doesn’t want to let go.

He doesn’t want to let go.

Anguished, he feels his emotions run wild along with his physically exerted expression. A sinking dread, boiling over hate, an anguished despair as he scrambles upright onto his feet, stomping the spilt gore of the slain infested, spreading and kicking it in the crushingly empty terminal. His fingers trail wet over the lax jaw held closed, clutching against the gilded plating that made the front of his partner’s face.

Behind him he hears fingers scratching on tile, a pushed stumbling that makes him turn.

It’s the corpse of his prime – a corpse tattered with spiking infestation and overridden with infested growth as blood spurts from a dripping throat. Skin is contorted, twisted from beneath and made corroded as skin begins to peel from the arching gilded spine. It tries to stand, limbs slipping on blood and numb nerves that make it collapse into a crumpled heap. A hand reaches out through the stumbling motions, reaching out for something to hold, reaching out for him.

Stalkers holds himself still as it crawls, blood soaked hands palming over the tiles smeared with the infested gore. It slowly drags itself through the spilt guts and torn muscle – and Stalker can feel a neural link searching for a connection for a neurologic system. The signal reads the same – one he’s grown intimately connected to through the decades.

It’s not him.

It’ll never be him again.

He jams his foot into it’s throat, pinning it on the ground as he steps over the twitching corpse.

And he grabs his scythe.

Stalker drags the end of the cruel blade down the infested taken body in one long agonizing stroke, feeling it writhe through an incoming request that doesn’t feel at all right. For the signal rings static, a fragmented connection that surges and pulsates in fog. An infested hand grips his angle, barely able to pull close as he jams the scythe deep into the offending body’s back, pinning it in place.

He needs to figure out what to do with it.

He needs time alone.

Alone and with the head of his beloved prime.

In his hands he can feel the last of his partner’s blood ooze over his restrained fingers, over his stomach and legs as he begins to wander back to the cart they left behind. For a moment, he looks back, realizing something that sends a jolt through his stomach. They were so close to their ship, they could’ve just fucking left.

But they didn’t.

It draws a twist in his throat.

He steps over the fallen corpses, holding the head tightly against his chest with his vision going dazed as his mind slips from the stress as he follows left with right, right with left. Again, and again, and again; clutching the severed head of his beloved against his chest, feeling the slack jaw begin to grow firm and calcifying beneath his fingers. Soon he won’t have to hold it closed anymore, made sickly stiffened as the flesh still resonates a lingering warmth. It still feels like its alive, wanting to tell him again and again romantic declarations.

Stalker tries to keep himself retrained, emotions made numb as the weight in his chest sinks, the head in his arms melding against his steps as he tries to force himself to think of anything else. Just anything to disassociate from the reality as his back lies against the ribbed frame of the push cart.

Memories swirl inside his mind; the time they spent together for centuries, fighting for survival through void and system, biding their time till things finally calmed down. Hours spent in each other’s arms, watching the void contort and swirl in the vision of a wall span screen. Words that will never be repeated, hands that will never hold over his own, nothing to treat him the same ever again. He clutches the head as he remembers the prime’s words, his smile that he’d never see again unless he moved a jaw forming stiff in his arms.

It pushes him back to reality, residing crumbled beside the cart, coiled around the hard head with arms and legs pulled close. He doesn’t care he can’t remember falling over, nor the strain in his systems running exhausted as red vents split to increase his ability to breathe. They hiss at his sides, blowing hot air as he trembles and shakes, made senseless as all he can do is mourn.

With tears that will never come.

Slowly he regains control of his quivering limbs, pushing himself to peer inside the cart and at the small bounty that had only just begun to collect before the attack. A shaking hand affirms around the box of a ship figurine he had stared at earlier, transfixed on the intricate details of the amazing sculpt. He resorts himself to cradle his partner’s head in his lap, legs crossed as he tries to focus himself on the ship he was only able to dream about owning a model of, nonetheless be anywhere close to in his former life as a meager mechanic. Behind him the caster that got lodged in the tile unsnags, lurching him backwards for a moment.

He doesn’t mind, nor does he care.

And he holds the prime’s head unrelentingly close, settled against his arms and guts as he stares. The coil in his gut boils over, pulling down through his throat as the bitter reality satureates into his skin. It sinks into his nerves as he sits beneath the bright glow of the vessel’s constant blinding lights; a searing pain rending through his chest, a nestling in his throat as his emotional restraint tears once again.

He drops the sculpture back into the bin behind him.

Stalker lifts the prime’s head level with his own as scratches gnaw in his throat.

Their foreheads press, rippled to gilded crown smeared with drying blood as his voice begins to shake, quivering hushed words that only he is willing to hear. Declarations for the dead, all the things he never had a chance to say or was too afraid to say them. The things he’ll miss, and on, and on, a rambling that make his voice reverb and resonate through the emptiness of the silent halls. His breathing begins to shake again, splitting vents at his side compensating for his sharp inhales that mimic panicking lungs.

And then he stops, emotions ready to shatter again as he curls around the head where he sits.

He needs to keep moving on, get the items for their ship… his ship.

But he just can’t.

Fingers press on firm skin.

A ragged chin curled down beneath his arms.

He can’t let him go.

**Author's Note:**

> This installment has been one I've been wanting to work on for a long while, planned years ago before I could find my writing mojo and actually getting things all down on paper. It predates Sleeping With Ghosts in the terms of planning, even though the later has been posted a year prior to this point.  
> I want to give a big shout out to those that read my content regularly and give comments/kudos! They're one of the things that keep me writing; it makes me happy that people are able to enjoy the content I put out (regardless of the rating)!


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